Could Criminals Make A Billion Dollars With Ransomware?

Bitcoin has not only changed the economics of cybercrime by providing crooks with an encrypted, nearly anonymous payment system autonomous from any central bank. It’s also changed researchers’ ability to track how much money criminals are making.

“Bitcoin is based on Blockchain, and Blockchain is a public ledger of transactions. So all Bitcoin transactions are public,” “Now, you don’t know who is who. But we can see money moving around, and we can see the amounts.”

Every victim of Ransomware — malware that encrypts files and demands a payment for their release — is given a unique wallet to transfer money into. Once paid, some ransomware gangs move the bitcoins to a central wallet.

“We’ve been monitoring some of those wallets,” Mikko says. “And we see Bitcoins worth millions and millions. We see a lot of money.”

Watching crooks rake in so much money, tax-free, got him thinking: “I began to wonder if there are in fact cybercrime unicorns.”

A cybercrime unicorn?

A tech unicorn is a privately held tech company valued at more than a billion dollars. Think Uber, AirBNB or Spotify — only without the investors, the overhead and oversight. (Though the scam is so profitable that some gangs actually have customer service operations that could rival a small startup.)

The scam is so effective that it seemed that the FBI was recommending that victims actually pay the ransom. But it turned out their answer was actually more nuanced.

“The official answer is the FBI does not advise on whether or not people should pay,” “But if victims haven’t taken precautions… then paying is the only remaining alternative to recover files.”

What sort of precautions? The answer is obvious.

“Backups. If you get hit you restore yesterday’s backup and carry on working. It could be more cumbersome if it’s not just one workstation, if your whole network gets hit. But of course you should always have good, up to date, offline backups. And ‘offline’ is the key!”

What’s also obvious is that too few people are prepared when Ransomware hits.

Barring any disruptions to the Bitcoin market, this threat will likely persist, with even more targeted efforts designed to elicit even greater sums.

If you end up in an unfortunate situation when your files are held hostage, remember that you’re dealing with someone who thinks of cybercrime as a business.